


‘cause i’m on fire

by sanguinarily



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 12:00:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15863199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinarily/pseuds/sanguinarily
Summary: Dimly he thinks that he can’t really use the ‘football’s just a bit gay’ excuse for this anymore. That one only covers having weirdly sexual thoughts about your teammates, not having extremely sexual reactions to your manager.





	‘cause i’m on fire

**Author's Note:**

> look.
> 
> tw anxiety

Normally, and by normally he means like the League or a friendly or something, he’s so thrilled after a win. Normally he’d be chatting shit with the lads or just waiting ’til he can climb into bed. Normally he’d be able to feel the aches that must be in his legs and arms, the bruises that have to be forming on his chest from being smacked into the grass by that Colombian.

The World Cup, though, ain’t normal. His heart still feels weird, like his ribs are too tight and his lungs are all squished too close around it, and the adrenaline’s still flowing so he can’t feel where it should hurt. He’s numb and sharp all at the same time and his mind’s racing, all the things they did wrong, the weaknesses they’ve left open to be exploited. The way the crowd will turn when they crash out. When Sweden fuck them and send them home. How it’ll be his fault. Harry Kane, England’s biggest mistake.

“Harry?”

He comes back to where he is (hotel lobby) and who he’s with, Dele and Eric. Both of them looking at him with concern through the jubilation of the win.

“You alright, mate?" Dele says, his usual monotone giving way a bit. "You look a bit off. Not hurt are you?”

Harry digs his nails into his palm and summons up a smile. “Nah, I’m good. Just thinking.”

Dele looks set to press him on it when Gareth speaks from his left:

“Dangerous habit, that.”

He’s got a hand on Harry’s shoulder and he’s smiling at them all.

Dele grins at him. “Alright gaffer? We do you proud?”

“Always, Dele. Eric. Mind if I talk to Harry?”

“No worries,” Eric says quickly, and because Dele looks like he's gearing up to say something else entirely he drags him away, leaving Harry to face Gareth alone.

Gareth looks. Well, he looks like a man whose dreams have just half come true. Relief and joy and pride all in his face as he looks at Harry and it's like hooks in his spine, ripe to cripple him.

“You alright?”

“Not here,” Harry says sharply and Gareth raises an eyebrow. Harry winces. “Sorry.”

“Give me half an hour and we’ll have a chat, okay?”

As Harry nods a yeah, Gareth gets swept away by Steve and Marcus and Jesse, arms looped around waists and grinning like madmen, jog up to Harry in a unison that’s gratifying to see as a football captain and terrifying as a normal bloke and Marcus says, “Oi skip, you gonna celebrate with us or what?” while Jesse sings at him:

“ _He’s one of our own, Harry Kane is one of our own._ ’”

They’re a distraction at least. Can’t be a miserable sod when Jesse Lingard is being Jesse Lingard.

“Thanks mate,” he says. “Count you as a Spurs fan now, can I?”

“Shut up Kane-o. Great game though.” Jesse looks over to where Gareth's with Steve and the team, waggles his eyebrows and jabs an elbow into Marcus’ shoulder. “Manager was looking at you like you was a snack.”

Marcus elbows back, and how they’re managing to do this whilst being as tangled as they are Harry doesn’t want to examine. “Shut up, man. Like you wouldn’t.” He puts on a jokey version of Jesse’s voice, “‘Everyone who’s anyone’s bi now’, innit?”

“Shut up, Rashy. Like you wouldn’t do David Beckham if he asked.”

“I was agreeing with you!”

They’re busy enough fake-fighting that Harry manages to back himself into the stairwell without them noticing.

Harry reckons he should probably start worrying about how many of his teammates think he and the manager are doing _something_  as well but instead he takes the stairs at a possibly ill-advised run and for the time it takes to climb to his floor, muscles screaming at him through the adrenaline, it’s like being on the pitch again. Simple goal, absolute focus on that, no time to think about either problem.

—

It’s worse in his room, though, one of those deafening silences. The horrible beige and red and green 80s movie-style rooms have excellent sound proofing and that’s fantastic for sleeping but terrible for Harry trying to distract himself from the chant of ‘ _It’s coming home, oh no it’s not, Kane’s fucked it! It’s not coming home_ ’ — the latest in the long list of chants he thinks the fans might go for when they lose.

He pulls his hoodie over his head and chucks it on the bed and after a moment’s thought he kicks off his shoes too, throws them under the desk. His hair’s a mess so he pats it down and then figures he's got time so sits and fixes it properly, they’re all of them vain about something and since he can’t fucking speak he figures he may as well have great hair.

The problem is, he thinks, looking at his reflection and the smile he isn't wearing. He's never felt like this before, or he has but not this strong. It's been building after games the whole tournament, win by win, a tension and nervousness that he doesn't feel when he's on the pitch but that wraps itself around his throat when he's off it. Playing football is too fast, quick decisions of where to run, where to put yourself, whether to go in and try or to hold back and bide time, how to make the field your own; it's hard to focus on fear when you're trying to be five steps ahead at all times. The aftermath of football used to be a glow if you win and a sad but not hopeless mardiness if you lose. Now it's playing it ice cool in interviews, smiles and sureness and talking about belief that he _does feel_  while digging his nails into his palms because it's one thing to be sure of yourself and your team but it's another to have the whole of England chanting their belief back to you.

Getting this far, and just now breaking the curse — winning a penalty shootout at a World Cup — it's that. It's proving you can do it to people who'd been doubting and having them swing totally the other way and put all their hopes on your shoulders that's done it, that's made him sharp and uncomfortable. A weight across his shoulders, aching like his legs should, like the bruises from being shoved to the grass will when they eventually bloom. It'll throttle him if they lose the next one.

On the bed his hoodie buzzes and Harry dives for it.

_Ten minutes. Got drawn in._

Harry doesn’t text back, no point. His heart rate’s going up a bit, adrenaline that hasn’t spent up yet. He folds the hoodie and puts it on the desk to leave the bed clear and he taps the message through so it won’t keep buzzing at him before putting the phone on charge on the bedside table.

He doesn't want to admit why he's cleared the bed, though he's mostly come to terms with the fact that the only thing standing between him and breakdowns is his manager. To be fair he’d had a while to work it out, what with the under 21s and his burning, stupid crush. It's the calm, he thinks. Gareth Southgate's calm and cool and he always has been. Speaks softly and thinks miles ahead of you. Knows what you need before you do, what you should change, who you are and who you can be.

He's checking his messages when the door clicks open, the gaffer having keys to all of their rooms just in case. Harry unbends and stands, awkward, not knowing what to do with himself.

“How you feeling?”

Harry doesn’t know what to say so he just sort of shrugs and then Gareth’s striding in, drawing Harry against him and Harry’s grateful to go, to drop his head to Gareth’s shoulder and just lean in.

Gareth laughs, he more feels it than hears it, a raise of shoulders under his forehead. “That well, eh?”

Breathing against the wool, Harry brings one hand up to rest on Gareth’s waist and with the other he holds the knot of Gareth’s tie. Not pulling just, just holding on.

“Harry,” Gareth says, in his default caring voice, just a little amusement he can’t hide in it. “We won.”

Harry twists the fabric of the tie and lifts his head to give Gareth a tired smile. “Marks and Sparks should be paying you tons for repping this all the time.”

Gareth rolls his eyes. “Yes, because I’m the only man in the world who can wear a waistcoat.” His fingers are in the short hair at the back of Harry’s neck, his thumb passing back and forth over the skin high on Harry’s neck. “You alright?”

"Yeah,” Harry lies pointlessly. “‘Course.“

" _Harry_."

Harry lets go of Gareth’s tie, loosened and top button undone, and tries to articulate it without scaring himself or Gareth. He can't think how though and opts for, “No. Sort of. I don't know. It's just—“

But Gareth knows. Gareth can probably read it in him, has probably seen it before. “I suppose it feels more real now.”

"Yeah."

“Well I can’t do anything to change it. I can’t make the crowds stop chanting for you. I can't pretend that this isn't the World Cup, that you're not on the world stage,” Gareth gives him a small smile, apologetic. It doesn’t suit him.

Harry opens his mouth and shuts it. Doesn't know what he was going to say but Gareth's eyes narrow anyway.

“What _do_ you need?” he asks, and it would be like training if it weren’t for the absolute hush in the room and the slight softness to his tone, “what _can_ I do?”

Harry catches about five responses before he settles on, “Help me not to think.”

It’s not the first time he’s been kissed by another bloke, but it is the first time it’s been more than a chaste peck of victory or just the result of aiming for his cheek and missing. Gareth uses the hand in his hair to angle Harry the little bit down to him and Harry doesn’t know where to put his hands, stands pliant and lets Gareth manoeuvre him where he likes.

Harry knows he’s not a great kisser, he can barely fucking speak at the best of times so he was never going to be good at this but Gareth doesn’t seem to care, kisses in sips of him, not enough that he’s desperate but not nothing.

“Did that work?” he says, moving back and standing completely clear.

Harry nods, it did, the hum of need and want has replaced the roar of expectation but if Gareth leaves now he knows it’ll come back. Harry grabs Gareth by the wrist. “Need more,” he says, and looks at Gareth. Hopes, prays that he’ll understand.

Gareth lets out a breath and looks at where Harry’s holding his arm while his free hand is doing a complicated manoeuvre to slide his tie off. The movement is smooth and practised and Harry finds himself wondering what Gareth’s been doing to get so good at taking his tie off with one hand, flushing at what he envisions.

But this ain’t fair, whatever he wants or _needs_ he knows that. “You can— if you’re tired— it’s not fair on—“

With a shrug, Gareth says, “I’ve not played a football game.”

“Yes you have,” Harry tells him, and Gareth just laughs.

By degrees he becomes aware that Gareth has turned Harry’s grip on his wrist into a way of leading Harry to the bed. He waits there, looking at Gareth in askance. Waiting for instruction.

It seems to be the right thing to do because Gareth nods, says, “Good. Take your shirt off and lie down with your shoulders at the pillows.”

Harry does as he’s told and finds he likes to, likes the way Gareth’s looking at him as he does it. Football’s a lot of following orders but no one’s ever looked at him when he complies the way Gareth is now, certain he would but pleased that he has anyway. It’s doing things to him now, here, that it threatened to when he was 19. He feels like a teenager again, sure but not.

“Hold on to the headboard.”

The headboard is solid, no bars to grip though he wishes there were. He holds it and watches as Gareth leans over him to tie his wrists together, not tightly, just the very barest suggestion of restraint. The position he’s in pulls at some of his muscles, not dangerously but enough for him to feel a slight burn and stretch.

“Don’t let go unless I say that you can,” Gareth tells him and Harry shifts his grip to make it as comfortable as he can before nodding.

At the side of the bed Gareth undoes the buttons at his cuffs, rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. This is the sight that a hundred journos would go mad for, that most women and some men back home watch for on the news or in the papers. Gareth Southgate, sex symbol. It would be funny if Harry wasn’t currently in the same boat, hadn’t been in the same boat on and off for years.

Gareth checks the knot of the tie around his wrists again, then strokes a hand down his left arm. Over his extensors to his biceps then his shoulder and down to rest in the centre of his chest. He presses down lightly before taking his hand away. “Sanchez threw you down hard,” he says.

Harry nods. “Don’t hurt, though,” he says, quickly, just in case Gareth decides not to do anything for fear of damaging him. “Nothing properly hurts.”

“It will tomorrow,” Gareth tells him, and his voice is weird and strained.

“Good thing it’s recovery, then,” Harry retorts and misses Gareth’s hand moving until it presses, hard, against where he’s getting hard and hot and Harry chokes off a groan. “Fuck.”

Gareth taps his hip and he lifts them, lets Gareth guide his joggers down, strip them off him to leave him naked but for his boxers while Gareth’s still pretty much suited and booted. Harry’s 19 year old self is doing hand stands, Harry’s 24 year old current self is squeezing his eyes shut and gripping the headboard for dear life as Gareth pulls his boxers down to join his joggers.

The cool air of the room hits his cock and Harry feels Gareth guide his knees up to strip the clothes from his ankles, leaving him totally naked on the bed and sort of tied up. He's never thought he'd be into this, he's tried it and he wasn't really, but he's standing to attention now.

Harry risks opening his eyes when he feels the mattress dip, finds Gareth’s hands hovering over his chest like he’s asking permission.

So he says: “Please,” and follows it with “you said you’d help me,” and Gareth leans over and kisses him, wraps one arm around his shoulders to curl a hand high around his neck and Harry’s so distracted by that the when Gareth’s other hand finally fists his dick he shouts, arching off the bed at the shock of sensation.

“Hold still, Harry,” Gareth says and Harry does, settles back against the bed and bites his lip. The hand at his dick lets go and Harry wants to reach down and put it back but Gareth said not to let go of the headboard and fuck if Harry’s going to disobey that, not when Gareth’s running his hand over Harry’s chest. Not when Gareth’s alternating stroking with his slightly calloused palms and his nails, digging in under Harry’s nipple and making Harry strain with the effort of staying put, shoving everything from his mind but sensation and self-control.

“Please, please. You can’t just—“

He’s hyperaware of the pressure of Gareth’s right palm against his neck, his fingers moving to tip Harry’s head back, opening up the column of his throat. Gareth’s eyes are dark as he strokes his left palm up, over Harry’s throat, to tap his fingers to Harry’s lips.

Harry doesn’t need to be told, he opens his mouth and sucks, sees Gareth’s eyes widen, go dark and blown out and Gareth shifts totally away to kneel over him, right hand on Harry’s shoulder as his left curls around Harry’s cock again and spreads the wet up the length of him, fully hard and aching for it.

“I can’t just what?” Gareth says and it takes Harry a moment to register what he’s on about, can’t speak to answer so just moans and leans forward to watch those fingers work his dick slowly, so slowly. It's deep red and dripping, he can feel his heartbeat in it, steady throbbing.

Jesus. He’s so lost he’s mute with it, enraptured and letting Gareth do whatever he wants to him. Dimly he thinks that he can’t really use the ‘football’s just a bit gay’ excuse for this anymore. That only covers having weirdly sexual thoughts about your teammates, not having extremely sexual reactions to your manager, not needing his hands on you to calm you down.

Gareth’s varying his speed, still pressing Harry’s shoulder back into the bed and he’s glad of that ‘cos if he weren’t Harry’d be having trouble holding still. And god he’s still fully dressed, kneeling over him in his smart get-up that’s going to get ruined if he’s not careful, if Harry can’t get his brain back online in time to warn him.

He manages, “Close,” and Gareth gives a warning squeeze to cut him off, takes his hand away and leans back, trailing his damp hand over Harry’s thighs while his dry one tweaks a nipple. Harry’d have to crane his neck to see him and he doesn’t think he has the energy, just gazes up at the ceiling.

Without any touch but the slight scratch of Gareth’s trousers against his legs, Harry breathes. He’s fighting the shudders that want to grip his hips, to move his shoulders and rip his hands away from the headboard to finish the job. But Gareth doesn’t want him to let go, wants him to stay still and Harry, god help him, does what he’s been told. Stays gasping and aching and thinking about nothing but how Gareth will touch him next.

“Alright?” Gareth murmurs and Harry nods, adjusting his grip on the headboard to pull him up a bit so he can flash Gareth a sharp, quick smile, winces at the strain. Gareth’s gaze shifts into concerned at that. “How are your arms?”

“Burnin’,” Harry says, “but good. Not pain.”

It’s true. The adrenaline from his anxiety has shifted into the adrenaline of sex and he can’t feel anything but heat, his straining arms, his taut belly, his red cock is all just crossed wires in his head that make him gasp and fight against shifting ’til he gets a hand back on his dick.

After what feels like hours but can only be a minute, the bed dips again and Gareth settles up along Harry’s side to push his fingers through Harry’s hair and kiss him and god that shouldn’t make him even harder but somehow it does, it shouldn’t be possible to get harder but somehow it is. The slight pull against his scalp and Gareth’s teeth at his lips send him whimpering, writhing and twisting to get some friction before he remembers.

Gareth laughs and pushes Harry’s hips back down, rests his hand on the plane between hip and cock and says, “How’s that not thinking going?” and Harry can’t even laugh, he’s pulled tight like a bowstring, ready like the moment before a penalty, everything he is is coiled up and waiting for Gareth to let him come.

He nods and Gareth brings his hand up again, and this time Harry goes to town, sucks his fingers like he’s sucking something else — _Christ_ — and when Gareth takes them back to wrap them around his cock again Harry keens, turns his head and presses close to Gareth’s throat because if he looks, if he sees this, it’ll all be over in a heartbeat.

His skin’s tingling and his balls are drawing up tight and his fingers must be white-knuckled around the headboard as he pants against Gareth’s neck, lets Gareth kiss his hair and the corner of his eye where he’s crying and arches his hips up, chasing Gareth’s hand, every twist and rock of his fingers.

“Sorry,” he says, madly, apologising for the shudders that wrack him and that he has _no control over_ and Gareth shifts his grip, kisses his forehead and says:

“Don’t be, Harry, you’ve been so good, now come on,” and Harry hadn’t known that was a thing for him but it must be because he’s shouting.

He feels like it’s punched out of him, every nerve ending on fire and arching desperately into it and he’s so glad his eyes are closed because he knows his vision would be whiting out if they weren’t. He buries his face into Gareth shoulder, he can’t breathe, he can’t move, he can’t feel anything it’s all just gone. Dimly he becomes aware of Gareth working him through it, pumping his cock as he pulses again, sending spurts of wetness across his own chest.

Eventually, he stops coming, moans into the fabric of Gareth’s collar and tears his face away to look, to see his own dick still jerking deliriously in Gareth’s hand.

Gareth gets an arm back under his shoulders and covers Harry’s eyes but doesn’t stop working him, and it hurts, he’s too sensitive for it, it’s torture, he’s aching but Gareth keeps going, murmuring things that Harry couldn’t parse if he fucking wanted to.

And then he starts to feel it again, the world narrowing to a point, overstimulated and burning and he gasps out “god” and “fuck” and “ _no_ ” and Gareth keeps the hand over Harry’s eyes and Harry’s fucking grateful to be blind to this. Surely he can’t come again.

His cock twitches, all the blood gone there making his limbs numb and his fingers slide from the headboard as he fucking falls, bites his lip hard against the yell as he comes again, dry and sharp and decimating.

He comes back into awareness in tired flashes, to Gareth sliding his wrists out of the knot of his tie, to Gareth leaving and then returning with a lukewarm flannel and wiping him down, to Gareth sitting up against the headboard and scrolling through something on his phone. He can feel the bruises settling on his chest and he reckons there’s the aftermath of some sort of cramp in his calf but he’s so tired that they’re dull, that he can just lump them into a full bodied ache. He tries to stretch through it and groans.

“Hello,” Gareth says, looking down at him, and Harry flushes, retroactively _mortified_. Remembers Gareth kissing him, remembers begging for it like a slag as Gareth touched him all over.

At least he’s got enough brains left, and enough spirit of fairness, to ask “what about you?” though he knows he’s too tired to do much.

Gareth goes still. “I can’t ask that of you.”

“You can ask anything of me,” Harry says, instantly and pushes back the horror at how sappy it sounds because it’s true.

He gets a smile for that, gratitude and wonder in it and god. Fuck.

“It’s fine, Harry,” Gareth says. “I’m glad I could help.”

Harry doesn’t say ‘you always do’ because he’s mortified himself enough tonight — this morning? — for that, and yawns around a ‘thanks’ instead.

Between the bed and the door Gareth hesitates but Harry’s eyes are dropping closed and he can’t hold his head up anymore. He hears the door open and shut.

Marcus and Jesse, he thinks as sleep finally gets him, must never know.

**Author's Note:**

> yes.
> 
> title is from for what it's worth by placebo (for what it's worth i always aim to please but i nearly died etc)
> 
> a comment a day keeps the doctor away


End file.
